'[She] ends up deleting our only copy': Micromanager reassigned after randomly wiping IT department's tech devices

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 27, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

Oh to be a fly on the wall when this IT director had to face her bosses…

This excellent story of malicious compliance was shared by u/Barcs2k12. They write that when they were working in the IT department of a state agency, they encountered a Karen boss who was so sure she was smarter than the IT team. So much smarter that she planned and coordinated a catastrophe on her own team! 

The best bosses are the kind who can see your talents and encourage you as you grow. They can become your mentor if they see you're destined to do great things. But of course, most bosses aren't quite like that. A lot of them, like the IT director Karen in this story, think that because they're the boss, it means they know more than anyone else in the room. It seems like she really needed to be humbled… and as the OP writes, she certainly was. 

Commenters found it funny that instead of being fired, this person was just reassigned. At least she would be away from the OP, but she'd be someone else's nightmare boss instead. 

Read all about this person's malicious compliance work story below. Then, read another bad boss story. 

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  • 01
    Purple - m 'We had no backup policy, but I did keep a personal backup of the drive. Cue malicious compliance. TO ALL WANDERN porting to my Santiag Mother of tu
    via Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
  • 02
    Font - The director of IT tries to overstep and abuse her power and it ends up deleting our only copy of our computer image
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 03
    Font - Just to clarify, this was the IT director at a government agency (basically meaning manager). It is not about the director of the movie.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 04
    Font - This happened around 2010. I work in IT for a state agency. Since it's government, our leadership positions are mostly appointed by the governor, rather than being promoted from within. As a result, we had a director of IT who knew nothing about IT. We'll call her Karen.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 05
    Font - Karen came from a completely different unit, and due to a union dispute over a hostile work environment, she was reassigned to our unit, rather than fired. This frequently happens with appointees. They do not like to fire them because it makes the governor look bad. Unsurprisingly, the unit began going downhill after she took over, because she was extremely emotional and tried to micromanage everything.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 06
    Font - My normal job duties involve computer repair and networking, covering multiple offices. I volunteered to help the main capital office create our computer software image, naively thinking it would help me get promoted, but all in all it was just tedious and was starting to cause me to fall behind in my normal duties. I had been working on the image for about 6 months, updating it when needed.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 07
    Font - *For those who aren't IT savvy, an image is a snapshot of the computer hard drive, fully loaded with all of the drivers and software already installed. To do this manually would take 4-5 hours on every computer, whereas using an image would take about 40 minutes.*
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 08
    Font - We work very standard hours, M-F, 9-5. On Thursday at 4PM, we get an urgent message from Karen, stating that we all must report to the main office Friday morning at 9AM and to bring our USB drives. We were told that if we didn't bring the flash drives, we would be sent back to go get them. She didn't say why.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 09
    Font - Obviously, I wasn't happy about how unprofessional it was to give such little notice about a meeting that requires a 2 hour drive one way and to reschedule my entire day of meetings for PC repairs. I called some associates work worked in our main office to find out what was going on.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 10
    Font - Apparently Karen had convinced herself that IT support MIGHT have "bad stuff" on the drives (completely on a whim, mind you, they didn't have software to track it). The plan was to collect all flash drives, wipe them and then give them back, without telling us. The sheer stupidity of this idea was off the charts, considering we kept all of our important troubleshooting tools on there plus the image.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 11
    Font - Since I did the imaging, my flash drive had all of the source files for the image. All of our software, drivers, multiple versions of windows, along with the complete documentation of how to set it all up. We had no backup policy, but I did keep a personal backup of the drive. Cue malicious compliance.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 12
    Font - I was not happy about how Karen did not tell us what was being done or why. I deleted my personal backup and decided to just play dumb and came to the meeting and turned in the drive. Surely, they would be smart enough to say something, ANYTHING, before doing this... but nope. Sure enough, they were wiped without our consent or knowledge and then given back to us.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 13
    Font - A few weeks go by and they ask me about how things are going with the image. I simply tell them that it's been erased by Karen without my knowledge, so unfortunately, there was nothing I could do, and I'm not about to recreate it all from scratch.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 14
    Font - Most of IT support lost their copies as well during that meeting and all the networking team had was a backup from years ago before I took over. Honestly, At this point I was sick of volunteering my time for nothing in the main office, and it was making my normal job much harder, so I was happy to wash my hands of that.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 15
    Font - Needless to say, Karen was ped, but she couldn't do a d thing about it, since it is THEIR job to create backups and manage them, not mine. They had to recreate the image and documentation completely from scratch (dozens of hours of work). Karen was eventually reassigned to another unit and things got better in IT after that. I'm kind of like a folk hero in that agency now, everyone was very happy to have Karen gone.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 16
    Font - Korazair Even better. "Karen deleted the image drive so I Have to do everything by hand" use image backup to create system and then 3-4 hours of Reddit to "complete the install"
    via u/Korazair
  • 17
    Automotive lighting - Photodan24 More failing upward in state bureaucracy that causes turmoil and waste. Not surprised.
    via u/Photodan24
  • 18
    Font - Tom1252 +2. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it sounds like they were trying to delete something specific without anyone being able to figure out which drive had that specific thing on there.
    via u/Tom1252
  • 19
    Font - 1lluminist +1 Karen was eventually reassigned to another unit Cool cool... what are the odds she just Peter Principled her way into an even better paying job by f king up in IT?
    via u/1lluminist
  • 20
    Font - Barcs2k12 OP. Sadly, this happens with appointees, quite often. It's REALLY hard to fire them, so they just bounce around for years until they retire. You have to mess up REALLY bad to get fired here, especially as an appointee.
    via u/Barcs2k12
  • 21
    Font - Ill-Organization-719. I know what a computer image is, but imagining you guys caring so much about a single jpeg of a desktop computer makes it so much funnier.
    via u/Ill-Organization-719
  • 22
    Font - Cloud9_Forest Bureaucracy is terrible all over the world for same reasons. 1. The clueless appointees 2. The clueless un- fireable employees
    via u/Cloud9_Forest

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boss delete micromanager work stories computers director manager job malicious compliance work malicious-compliance-reddit technology software karen information technology
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